


Numeron

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [54]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: “Chaos will always exist,” Yuma agrees, her voice deep and echoing, “But that is nothing new. There can be no peace without chaos, and it is nothing that myself and my kingdom cannot handle."





	Numeron

Yuma and Astral separate, and Yuma falls to her knees. In the end, she owes everything to a quick play card, Double up Chance. It feels fitting.

The worlds are safe. Don Thousand lies flat on his back on the ground, bruised and defeated.

The former god begins to laugh. “You may think you’ve won, but my true curse is just beginning,” he growls. “In the end, the universe cannot exist without Chaos. In the end, I will be reborn. Maybe not in this century, or this galaxy, but I will be reborn.”

A dark ball of energy rises from Don Thousand’s body, and then the body fades but the ball of energy continues to grow. It spits red lightening, it pulsates, and then it charges at Ryoga.

But Yuma pushes him out of the way, and the energy collides with her.

A great roar fills Yuma’s ears as the energy erupts under her skin, and it’s pain like she’s never felt before. Eons of war and hate and revenge bubble up in her soul. Her whole body, every cell, vibrates and threatens to fly apart, but Yuma holds herself together with the lone thought that she will not be undone by this.

“Chaos will always exist,” Yuma agrees, her voice deep and echoing, “But that is nothing new. There can be no peace without chaos, and it is nothing that myself and my kingdom cannot handle.”

Yuma remembers her dad coming home and hugging her. Her mom waking up early to make lunch for everyone. Her sister teaching her to tie her shoes. Her grandma always making sure she got a kiss before she left. She remembers Rio’s eyes lighting up when she walked through the door of their classroom every day. She remembers Ryoga dancing with her at night. She remembers Kotori offering her a hand, Tetsuo helping her up after a fall, Takashi’s smile as he handed her an extra pencil, Cathy’s jokes, Tokunosuke’s exuberance, and a hundred other things that they and a hundred other people have done to show that they loved and cared for her.

Yuma has Chaos. The whole universe has Chaos. But she and the universe also have love.

The thrum of power fades. The darkness fades. The pain fades. The Chaos will always be there, but it won’t take over her every thought. She will live with it, the way she learned to live with grief and anger after her parents went missing. She will live with it, but it will not rule her.

Yuma opens her eyes. Ryoga, Astral, Kite, and Kotori stare at her in awe.

“You did it,” Kite says. “You beat Don Thousand.”

“Did I vore him?” Yuma asks. She’s got her normal voice back.

Kite, Ryoga, and Kotori almost fall over laughing. Astral looks confused.

“What’s vore?”

“Oh, you don’t want to know,” Kotori says.

Ryoga takes Yuma’s hands. “I guess there’s just one thing left to do, then.”

He pulls several cards from his deck, and gets down on one knee. “Yuma, I surrender these Numbers to you.”

Kite does the same thing, taking cards from his deck and getting down on one knee. “Yuma, I surrender these Numbers to you.”

Yuma smiles, and takes the cards. She’s done it—she’s collected all 100 Numbers. Before she can even joke about it feeling like a proposal, everything explodes in a flash of white light and she vanishes.

 

* * *

 

Yuma opens her eyes. Everything is white. It’s so…all-encompassing. She can’t even tell if she’s in a small space or a huge one. She puts her arms out to the sides and touches nothing. Okay, kind of a big space.

“Welcome,” a voice booms.

Yuma turns (or does she? It’s hard to tell what her own body is doing,) and a dragon stares into her eyes. “TEN FUCKING DAYS!” She shrieks, stumbling back.

The dragon chuckles. “Days mean nothing here, nor will they ever run out for you.”

“Wait, you’re the OG Dragon!” Yuma shouts.

The  Numeron dragon seems to grin. “I actually now what that means, and I suppose it’s accurate.”

“Am I dead?” Yuma asks.

“No,” The dragon says. “You’re in the Numeron Code.”

“But I thought that was a card,” Yuma says. “How can I be in a card?”

“You aren’t,” says the Dragon. “You are in a place where time and space mean nothing, and everything, because you hold the key to both, the key to the entire universe. You can do anything with it. You can have anything you like. I am here to assist you, though I cannot tell you what to do. I may be the writer of this code, but you are the owner, and that makes you the boss. So, what is your first wish?”

Well, that’s easy enough. “I wish Astral was here with me.”

For a moment it feels like nothing happened. Then…

“Yuma?”

She sighs in relief. “Oh thank god, I couldn’t possibly do this without you.”

Astral looks around in confusion. “Where are we?”

Yuma takes his hand. “At the beginning of our kingdom, of course.”

 

* * *

 

First, Yuma finds Roku, Thomas, Tetsuo, Michael and Chris’ souls and makes sure that they’ll be revived on Earth. Then she and Astral start building their Kingdom.

They start with the basics. What will the kingdom look like?

Turns out, that’s not so basic. Yuma wants everyone to feel at home, but to also try new things. Some places in her kingdom look like Earth—every single place on earth. There are cities, valleys, great caverns and oceans. There are places that look like Astral world and Barian world. There are places that look like they came out of a child’s drawing, full of fluffy clouds and rainbows, glitter and fairy lights. There are places that are like cocoons, dark and cozy, where people can hide away. There are places marked ‘under construction,’ that can be finished in the future to accommodate the needs of any citizen.

“Can we have computers in my Kingdom?” Yuma asks. “I want them to connect to each other, some kind of internet throughout the kingdom, but I also want them to be able to connect to computers all over the universe. I mean, like, people on the computer in my Kingdom can view YouTube videos from earth, but they can’t comment on them and no one on Earth will know that someone from another dimension is watching.”

“Very eloquent,” Astral teases.

“Of course it can be done,” The dragon says. “But there are several loopholes you need to close.”

They’ve barely scratched the surface of Yuma’s plans. There’s more to build, more to plan, more to imagine.

And of course, there has to be a Labyrinth.

 

* * *

 

Despite holding the key to to the universe, there’s a lot about it that Yuma can’t change. Well, technically she could, but it would mean changing almost everything. People will always have free will, Yuma can merely see all the outcomes of each choice they make. She can help them along by setting them up to take certain paths, but she can’t control every minute detail. Basically, Yuma can’t dictate everything.

So the dinosaurs still go extinct, along with the wooly mammoth, the dodo bird, Neanderthals, and saber-toothed tigers. The volcano erupts on Pompeii, Caesar is stabbed to death, and the world wars happen.

Don Thousand still messes with the people who will become the Barian emperors, but rather than go to Barian world, the souls of the people who died in Vector’s war are offered a place in Yuma’s kingdom. She never leaves the white space, but she somehow talks to each soul. She explains everything to them and offers them a place in her Kingdom. They all accept the offer. They last person Yuma meets with it meets Vector’s mother, and she puts her in charge of all the souls that are coming over from Barian world. As a former queen, she knows a thing or two about overseeing a Kingdom, and Yuma will need someone to run it while she continues her education.

“What about Vector’s father?” Astral asks.

Yuma shakes her head. “He’s not invited.”

“A wise choice,” the dragon says. “His soul can stay where it is.”

Yuma doesn’t want to know where that is. There are some things she won’t dare to touch. “Speaking of that bastard, how was I able to see what really happened in Vector’s past? Back in the castle, I mean.”

“Hundreds of years of emotional turmoil leaves a mark,” The dragon says. “Even if Vector couldn’t remember it, his true memories were within him the whole time. You saw that in the pictures and writings he left on those walls. When Don Thousand’s hold on him slipped, he retreated and tried to make sense of the conflicting stories in his head. Between his power and his grief…those walls were waiting for someone to come along and hear his story.” The dragon seems to smile. “And I suspect you were able to see it as well, because you had the makings of a Numeron holder.”

That could be, or maybe it was just because of all the dimensional energy that had been gathering in Yuma’s body over the past year. Just as Rio was able to sense the energy in Vector’s old palace, she was able to sense the energy in his current one.

 

* * *

 

She needs to deal with Astral world. Barian world should never have existed, and while it was easy enough to convince the former citizens to integrate into Yuma’s Kingdom, Astral world has existed for…well, a very long time. She would love to allow it to continue as it always has, but without Chaos the citizens will find themselves on shaky ground sooner or later. It wasn’t enough for Yuma to hold some hands and heal some people, the whole world is unstable.

“Can we just bring back Chaos?” Yuma asks Astral.

He shakes his head. “Chaos was expelled, we can’t just throw it all back in at once, and I’m not sure we have time to slowly let it back in.”

So Yuma talks to the citizens of Astral world. Most of them understand that they can’t stay in their world, but some are stubborn. Astral does what he can convince the holdouts, and Yuma arranges for meetings between the citizens of Barian world and Astral world.

It’s…enlightening, to say the least. By the time all is said and done, only a handful of souls remain on Astral world, and it’s not because they hate the idea of living with Barians, it’s because they’re too scared to leave.

Yuma understands, and Astral world won’t collapse in mere days. She leaves Eliphas on Astral world to monitor those people and try to talk to them. If, in the end, they chose to fall with their world, that’s something Yuma can’t blame herself for. She, Astral, and Eliphas will continue to try. Ena works with Vector’s mother to oversee integration between Astral and Barian world citizens in their new home.

 

* * *

 

Yuma and Astral take time out from re-planning the universe to cuddle. They lay on their sides, facing each other, kissing every now and then. They haven’t had time to just be together like this since Yuma got Astral back from the brink of death.

“How long have we been here?” She asks. It’s a joke, she knows time has no meaning here.

“23 minutes,” Astral says seriously.

“Wait, really?”

“No, that was a joke,” Astral says, grinning.

“Oh, you got me,” Yuma says. She sits up and stretches. “Man, this place is great. I’m not tired or sore, and watch this—I wish I had a chocolate ice cream.” A cone appears in her hand. “Dude, this is the best!”

Astral leans over and steals a lick of the ice cream. His eyes widen. “We should have ice cream in your Kingdom!”

And just like that, Yuma’s kingdom needs cows and dairy pasteurizing centers. Nothing she can’t handle, of course.

 

* * *

 

Yuma finally sees how Ryoga and Rio went from being Barians to humans. Apparently, Vector got pissed off at emperor Nasch enough to attack Merag, use her to lure Nasch to the edge of Barian world, and then proceeded to throw Merag into some kind of swirling vortex of death. An ancient god that the pair had worshipped in their former life saved their souls from condemnation and offered to reincarnate them into a place where they would be safe from Vector until such time that they could overtake him. Thus, their souls were reborn into the twins that Mr. and Mrs. Kamishiro conceived.

“Deus ex machina, much?” Yuma mutters as the scene flickers and fades from the white-room.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Astral asks.

“I’ll explain later,” Yuma says rubbing her forehead. “Alright, time to find the parents.”

So Yuma locates the souls of Rio and Ryoga’s parents, and tells them everything. They of course had no idea that their children were reincarnations of Barians, and they actually find the whole thing rather interesting. And they’re very anxious to hear about their own children. They’ve been dead for too long for Yuma to bring them back to earth, but they eagerly agree to come to her Kingdom and wait for their children there.

Next, Yuma needs to decide how she’s going to give a second chance to the Barian emperors. As the ones who were most messed with by Don Thousand, they are owed another chance. Plus, they’ve already been to earth and interacted with it in this century. So while she can’t bring back the citizens of the former kingdoms, who have been dead and are unused to modern life, she can do it for Gilag, Alit, Mizael, Durbe, and Vector. She needs to give them history, and a current life.

For Gilag, she creates a life of service. He’s an orphan who attended military school and graduated with honors. He’s 25 and has history working as a bodyguard and bouncer. He also oversees the current charges of the Kamishiro foundation—Durbe, Vector, Mizael, and Alit.

The Kamishiro foundation is something that Yuma made up with Mr. and Mrs. Kamishiro when she spoke to them. It was something they actually wanted to do when the kids got older, and involved taking in orphans and providing them a place to live and a chance to attend Heartland Academy. Gilag, Rio, Ryoga, and the four charges of the foundation all live together in the Kamishiro mansion. Rio and Ryoga will become the heads of the foundation once they graduate from college, and there are finance directors taking care of the trust to ensure that many more children will be able to take advantage of the program.

She makes sure that the Barian emperors retain their memories of their past lives, their lives on Barian world, and all of the encounters they had with Yuma, both good and bad. She hesitates on Vector’s memories. She knows he’ll probably resent her for making him remember the many people Don Thousand made him kill. She knows that it’s cruel to make him remember something that wasn’t his fault. But at the same time, it’s important that he does remember, because one day Yuma’s power may go to her head, and she need Vector to be there to remind her of what happens when powerful people try to manipulate the world too much.

 

* * *

 

One thing her Kingdom will never have is a throne. Not for her, not for Astral, not for Ryoga or Rio or Kotori (though she knows if anyone deserves a throne, it’s Kotori). No one will ever have a spot above others in her Kingdom. Everyone will always be on the same level.

 

* * *

 

Yuma finds her parents on Astral world. She has so much she wants to tell them, but now is not the time. Instead, she plans for their return to earth.

 

* * *

 

Yuma and Astral have to decide Astral’s fate.

“I want to go back to Earth,” Astral says.

“I kind of figured,” Yuma says. “But how will we do that?”

It takes a lot of planning, and they go through several different solutions until they find one that works. Yuma creates a history for Astral Anderson, an exchange student from Norway living with the Tsukumo family in Japan. To all those who know who Astral really is, they’ll see him as he always has looked. To everyone else, he’s an ordinary human boy with white-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and freckles that dot his skin like stars. No one will actually know, but his freckles are arranged to form constellations from across the universe.

“That’s so extra,” Astral tells her.

“Be quiet, I’m making you positively ethereal,” Yuma scolds.

He won’t be able to float or fly anymore, he’ll have to walk like a normal person, but he says he can get used to that.

 

* * *

 

Only Yuma’s friends and family will remember that the Earth was nearly absorbed by Barian world. Everyone else will wake up on an ordinary day and go on with their lives blissfully unaware that they just survived the apocalypse.

 

* * *

 

Yuma keeps her Key and her tattoo.

 

* * *

 

“I think we’re done,” Yuma tells the Dragon.

It nods. “I agree. It is time for you to return to Earth.”

 

* * *

 

Yuma opens her eyes. She’s standing in her room, looking out the window. It’s a beautiful morning, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the birds are chirping. Something hums under her skin, some kind of immense power that feels at once strange and familiar.

Footsteps hammer down the hall and Akari throws open the door to her room. “Yuma, what the fuck happened to the end of the world?” She gasps.

Yuma smiles and doesn’t look away from the window—she’s watching a blue jay build a nest. “Never mind that, you’re about to get a very important phone call.”

“What? From who?” Akari asks. Her phone rings, and she answers.

Yuma can’t hear what’s being said, but she knows anyway, because she planned it.

“Ms. Akari Tsukumo? My name is Luis Perez, I’m a doctor at the Central Hospital of Argentina. I have some incredible news—your parents have been checked into our hospital.”

The Arclight siblings will be getting the same call. Perhaps she should have warned them about that, that after being lost in the jungle for years, the exploration team of Kazuma Tsukumo, Mirai Tsukumo, and Byron Arclight has been found.

It made sense to throw Byron Arclight into it, after all the public still didn’t know that the child named Tron was the man who had disappeared so many years ago. Now, back in his proper body and found alive, Byron Arclight can start to rebuild his life with his children, just as the Tsukumo family can rebuild their life with their children.

Akari stammers. She runs down the hall. She screams, “GRANDMA HOLY SHIT GUESS WHAT?!”

Yuma opens her window and leans out. The blue jay pauses in building his nest and stares at her for a moment before resuming. Yuma inhales deeply. Things are going to change now, but in a lot of ways…they’re going to remain the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Next part will be the epilogue. Not sure if I will post it on Wednesday, but it will be up within the next week.


End file.
